We have to be candles,
burning between
hope and despair,
faith and doubt,
life and death,
all the opposites.
That is the disquieting place
where people must always find us.
And if our life means anything,
if what we are goes beyond the monastery walls and
does some good,
it is that somehow,
by being here,
at peace,
we help the world cope
with what it cannot understand.
William Brodrick
“Christ is the one whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
St. Bonaventure
“And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”
1 John 4:21
MY PRAYER for us today is to make space in our heart for others. St Bonaventure reminds us that God is everywhere, that there is no-where God is not. Where God goes we are to be ready to follow, even if that simply means sitting in our own kitchen with our hearts open to a neighbour. We follow him, not as much physically, as inwardly, it is a heart position of readiness, and openness to his prompting. We have found him where we are, and as inadequate and imperfect as we are, we have made the great exchange – our angst for his peace, our self-determination and striving for his will, our lives for his. We have something to give that the world needs, and which we know we would not be without. Now its our turn to make an exchange, our comfort for others relief, our security for others respite, our self-satisfaction for others joy. Today I pray that we would go out of way to make space in our hearts and lives for others, that we would be ‘channels of peace’, and outlets of his love.
These are drawn from daily reflections and prayers I write for my Chaplaincy colleagues.
Living Tree Poetry 